Submariners speculate on 'what ifs' in collision of Greeneville, Ehime Maru

By John Omicinski
Gannett News Service

Maybe if the Japanese fishing vessel Ehime Maru wasn’t painted white, a difficult color to pick out behind a gauzy veil of ocean haze.

Maybe if the submarine USS Greeneville had gone completely to the surface to check the horizons before submerging, rather than taking a periscope peek.

Maybe if the Ehime Maru was doing 12 knots instead of 11 knots.

Maybe if the Greeneville had sent out "pings" with its active sonar, maybe it would have picked up something it missed with the ears of its passive sonar. But maybe not. Those were some of the thoughts that went through the heads of ex-submariners and Navy officials as the investigation continued into the collision of the 360-foot Los Angeles class nuclear sub Greeneville with the 174-foot fishing vessel in Hawaiian waters off Diamond Head.

"A small white boat in a white haze is very hard to spot," said retired submarine Capt. John Peters of Honolulu, a 31-year veteran who skippered the USS John Adams and served on nine submarines.

"The only other thing he might have done is come up to the surface and take a look around," said 20-year veteran Bud Berg, a former chief electrical technician aboard several subs, including diesel-powered craft. "But then, you don’t know when someone is going to run over the top of you, anyway.

"I’m sure the Old Man (Cmdr. Scott Waddle, the Greeneville’s commanding officer) is going to suffer for it, but I’m not sure he could have done much," said Berg, an official of the U.S. Submarine Veterans, based organization in Silverdale, Wash.

"It was like an earthquake, an act of God. And God was working overtime that day to put that submarine and that little fishing boat together on that small patch of ocean."

Rear Adm. Al Konetzni Jr., submarine forces commander in the Pacific, has reassigned Waddle and replaced him with Cmdr. Tony Cortese as interim commanding officer.

Neither Berg nor Peters said they believed that the 16 civilians on board had anything to do with the accident.

"Having civilians aboard is done all the time," Peters said, "and they have nothing to do with what happens. Experienced people are always in control." Peters said he had civilians aboard his submarines "many times."

"It’s totally supervised and has no impact whatever on the ship," Peters said. "The investigation will probably find out that it did not contribute to this accident."

The Navy and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the civilians’ involvement and to what extent it might have influenced events.

The Greeneville incident resurrected the issue of submarines’ use of active and passive sonar systems to detect objects in the area.

A Department of Defense spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, insisted last week that the passive sonar - which listens for noise - was the "best sensor" available. The active sonar - which emits "pings" that bounce off solid objects - can be deflected in alternating layers of cold and warm water, he said.

"The sonar that would be helpful to you would be a system that would somehow be able to find surface targets at a considerable range from the submarine," he told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

"We have passive systems that are very good at doing just that. Now, there are limitations. If you have a surface target that’s not making any noise, or very much noise, that’s obviously a limitation.

"But in this particular case, you have a couple of things working against you. When you had Greeneville descend to the depth from which they started their emergency blow, not only do you have a thermal layer above you, but you also have the speed of the submarine itself moving through the water. You would not have good signal information on the return of any sort of an active sonar system."

The active sonar couldn’t have picked up the image of the Ehime Maru on its 300-foot-per-minute "ballast blow" exercise to the surface because of the noise, Quigley said. And because of active sonar’s location on the submarine, its beam would have been aimed to the rear as the sub ascended, making it difficult to have detected the fishing vessel.

The active vs. passive sonar issue first surfaced in 1989 when the National Transportation Safety Board suggested that the submarine USS Houston might not have snarled itself in a tugboat’s line if it had been using its active sonar.

That accident was different, however, in that both vessels were at or very near the surface.

John Omicinski covers national and military affairs for Gannett News Service.

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